Imam's fiery message speaks to radical British Muslims

Seth Rosen, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, July 17, 2005

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Please add to mediagrid, slugged London-Bakri.
Thanks,
Teresa
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-----Original Message-----
From: sethrosen@comcast.net [mailto:sethrosen@comcast.net] Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 5:46 PM
To: Castle, Teresa
Subject: Bakri photo Here is a nice picture I took of Bakri in the park. I'm sure your photo guys can get good close-ups from the wires but there's something about this picture that I really enjoy. Ran on: 07-17-2005
Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed sits in a park in Tottenham Hale, London. Several MPs have called for him to be deported. less

The room is so crowded that some of the audience -- mainly young men under 25 -- must sit on the floor while others watch from the hallway.

Long before the deadly July 7 bombings in London, Bakri's detractors warned that behind the lurid sound bites and incendiary language was an extremist whose sermons might be interpreted by his followers as justification for terrorist attacks in Britain.

Bakri, the founder of al-Muhajiroun (the Emigrants), a radical group whose goal is the worldwide domination of Islam, held off his critics by saying that Muslims in Britain lived under a "covenant of security" that prevented them from bringing any harm to the nation that sheltered them. But in his Collingwood speech, he said the government had flouted the contract, and all bets were off.

"The British government is sitting on a box of dynamite, and they have the matches," he warned.

Though none of the suicide bombers has been linked to Bakri, his message of Islamic supremacy has reportedly inspired hundreds of young Britons to become holy warriors. In addition to London, he has preached in Leeds, where most of the London bombers lived, and in Luton, where police found a parked car carrying high explosives that they suspect was used by the bombmaker.

Under pressure from the government, Bakri dissolved al-Muhajiroun last October, but he continues to preach in community centers and parks. In the past year, his furor has been turned on the British government.

In an interview, Bakri listed three developments he said breached the "covenant of security" with Britain: First, new laws, such as the Terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001, allowed the government to arrest individuals suspected of terrorist activities without charging them.

The second was a communiqué distributed last year by the Muslim Council of Britain to more than 1,000 mosques that urged imams to help the government combat terrorism. "Mosques are no longer houses of sanctity because imams are obliged to report anyone who comes to speak about jihad and supporting (Osama) bin Laden," Bakri said.

The final straw, he said, was that members of Parliament were electioneering at mosques, violating the houses or worship.

"Why do they force us to take a stand?" Bakri asked. "Do you think you can continue in this anarchism without paying the price?"

Bakri's message resonates with young British Muslims, who are bombarded by daily images, on television and the Internet, of Palestinian suffering, fighting in Fallujah and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. A March 2004 poll by the British group ICM Research found that 13 percent of British Muslims surveyed felt that further attacks by al Qaeda on the United States would be justified.

According to Bakri, al-Muhajiroun had 1,200 active members across Britain before it was disbanded, though some analysts have put the figure in the low hundreds, and it operated under more than 80 different names. The group ran information and recruitment stalls in 30 cities and actively recruited on college campuses, said Anjem Choudahry, the sheikh's top assistant, and many of those activities continue, though not under the name al-Muhajiroun.

"Muslims in Britain have two choices: They can compromise and take the Islam Blair wants you to take, or follow the true Islam," Sayful Islam, the former head of the Luton branch of al-Muhajiroun, said in March. "For too long, we have followed the White House. It's about time everyone followed the Black House of Islam."

However, he insisted that Bakri's followers would never cross the line and attack their own nation. "A threat is not posed by those in the U.K. because we have families here," he said. "It would have much more of a negative impact on Muslims than a positive one."

Bakri presents an intriguing message to young, frustrated Muslim men who feel ostracized from mainstream British culture and alienated from their tradition-bound parents, most of whom were born in Pakistan and Bangladesh and have little notion of what it is like to grow up as a Muslim in the West. Philip Lewis, author of "Islamic Britain," said the sheikh supplies his young followers with the moral high ground to criticize their parents and British society, which they view as racist.

Besides being an erudite Islamic scholar, Bakri is charismatic, charming, the consummate salesman. He takes the time to get to know his followers, shaking the hand of all those gathered outside the community center before his speech. He proudly boasts of his pingpong prowess and often challenges supporters to matches.

Instead of whipping his audience into a frenzy, he uses humor as an effective tool to get through to the young men. When a bee flew toward him during the lecture at the community center, Bakri took off his white loafer and shook it facetiously at the buzzing nuisance. The bee was sent by the police, he chortled, and "soon it will be every man for himself as we run out the door."

"The sheikh is so funny," said Noor Uddin, one of his followers. "Sometimes I can't even hear what he's saying because I'm laughing too hard."

In his lectures and interviews with the press, however, Bakri often is precariously balanced between the right to preach his interpretation of Islam and the criminal offense of incitement of violence.

In Internet sermons, he implores Muslims to fulfill their duty of jihad and to support the mujahedeen abroad. The BBC reported last April that Bakri defended the March 2004 Madrid train bombing and said British Muslims should kill and be killed for Islam.

"He's been preaching like this for years, and nothing has happened," said Abu Bakar Siddique, a former member of al-Muhajiroun, as he walked home from the Saturday evening lecture. "He never influences anyone to use violence or make a bomb."

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at St. Andrews University in Scotland, said Bakri was walking a fine line.

"There are no confirmed links between Bakri and al-Muhajiroun and terrorist acts, but ... potential recruits could be found among their ranks," he said.

Tamara Makarenko, a British terrorism analyst, said the group had sent several hundred people to Pakistan over the past decade, a charge that Choudahry, Bakri's deputy, denies.

"They did it in an indirect way," Makarenko said. "They would say they 'open the doors.' Whatever individuals did when they got there was their own business."

Britain's tolerance of radical preachers like Bakri had come under fire even before the attacks in London. Several members of Parliament have publicly called for the sheikh to be deported.

"If he starts making threats again, legal action will be imminent," said Lord Nazir Ahmed, a member of the House of Lords. "He's very much on the borderline."

Sitting in a park in Tottenham Hale, in Northeast London, looking out on a rambunctious game of soccer, Bakri said he expected to be arrested at any time and had not slept in his home since it was raided last year. He said that his detention would lead to anarchy.

With his glasses and a gray overcoat covering his white juba robe, he looks more like a professor lecturing on a verdant university campus than someone who could survive in the caves of Tora Bora. But when he begins to discuss anarchy, he leans forward on the bench and raises his voice an octave.

"Anarchy means no one will sit in this park anymore because no one can secure their life," he warns. "It becomes a cycle of blood."

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